N.J. Turnpike Authority, Florida pizza restaurants spar over logo

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority wants to be clear: It is not in the restaurant business, in this state or any other.

To underline the point, the agency has filed a federal lawsuit against a Florida chain of two New Jersey-themed pizza places, claiming the restaurants’ yellow-and-green logo too closely resembles the Garden State Parkway sign, according to the New Jersey Law Journal, which first reported the story.

“It’s hysterical,” co-owner Skip Parratt, a former New Jersey resident, told The Star-Ledger. “We’re all the way in the Florida Keys. It’s not like people are going to confuse us.”

The authority’s suit, filed last week, alleges service mark infringement, unfair competition and other claims against Jersey Boardwalk Pizza.

The restaurant’s logo has the same green-and-yellow color scheme, including an outline of the state, as the Parkway sign. But on on the restaurant logo, “Garden State Parkway” has been replaced by "Jersey Boardwalk Pizza Co.” with the words “Subs. Cheesesteaks. Pasta" below that.

The suit claims the restaurant’s logo is so similar to the Parkway sign as to give the impression that the two are linked, the Journal said.

Parratt and his brother-in-law, Paul DiMatteo, also a New Jersey transplant, opened their first restaurant 10 years ago in Tavernier using the logo. Parratt, a former contractor from Belmar, and DiMatteo, a former ironworker from Brick, said the agency’s suit was all the more outlandish since other uses of the Parkway sign, or at least close approximations, were everywhere, including in New Jersey itself.

“Coming after someone down here, 1,300 miles away, is ridiculous,” DiMatteo said.

But the authority notes that the restaurant is actively working to franchise the brand — and presumably the logo — nationally, including, the restaurant says on its website, "up and along the coast to the northeast of the United States."

"This is not just about some pizza joint in the Florida Keys," a spokesman for the authority said an email.

In addition to compensatory and treble damages, the authority wants the restaurant to surrender the trademark and turn over any merchandise emblazoned with the logo, the Journal said.

Parratt and DiMatteo said that they noted their logo's similarities to the Parkway sign when they applied for a trademark, which they received.

But in its suit, the authority says the restaurant owners applied for the trademark after it accused them of infringement, and wants them to surrender it, the Journal said.

The authority’s lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter on April 16, while the defendants filed a service mark application on April 30, the Journal reported.

According to the Journal, a lawyer representing the authority said in the cease-and-desist letter that the agency, which operates the Parkway as well as the New Jersey Turnpike, “has invested a substantial amount of time, money and other resources advertising, promoting, marketing and publicizing its services provided under the Garden State Parkway logo mark,” which has been in use since 1956.

But a lawyer for the defendants said Jersey Boardwalk Pizza’s logo does not infringe on the Parkway’s signs since the restaurants are so far away. And, she added, no one would mistake the restaurant with a government entity in charge of roads.

“They want us to take it all down,” Parratt said, “But we’re going to fight this because it’s so absurd.”